My novel Shattered is about Comedian, Mikey Haskell. He thinks he has bypassed grief by escaping to the endless highways and neon-lit nights of a road tour. He comes home to the Twin Cities to reconnect with his best friend but finds his emotional conflict waiting for him.

Mikey, a young and fragile comedian, once found happiness in his fiancé’s warm embrace. However, when their relationship ended, he found himself overwhelmed by the intense emotions and had no effective methods to handle the heartbreak. While vulnerability is a universal experience, it’s not often discussed.

It’s what led me to write this book.

Although I started writing this a while ago (many years) and am no longer as fragile as I once was, Mikey’s story still resonates with me. Although I am not Mikey, I have felt many of the emotions he experiences at different points in my life. Maybe Mikey represents what I could have become without the support of a loving family and friends.

And that is what I have learned over the years. The drug addict, the criminal, and the person living in poverty are no different from you or I. You think you would have made better choices, but there is some privilege in our lives that protected us from facing that choice. We had some hope that kept us from making a wrong choice or in changing before it became our way of life.

Ultimately, this story is about the feelings of alienation and rejection that we all experience at one point or another. It’s a reminder that dealing with our pain and having loved ones by our side can lead to redemption.